Congress Grilling 34 App Store Developers Over User Privacy

The controversy over Path uploading users’ address book data continues to create ripples across the tech world, with two members of Congress sending a joint letter to 34 developers of social apps in an effort to understand how they collect and use such data.

Ars Technica is reporting that House representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Fred Upton (R-MI) have sent a joint letter to 34 App Store developers who specialize in social apps. According to the letter, the idea is to "better understand what, if any, information these particular apps gather, what they do with it, and what notice they provide to app users."

Ironically, the 34 developers include Apple CEO Tim Cook, since the company’s Find My Friends app is all about sharing your location with other people. The others weren’t chosen because they’re guilty of any privacy sins -- instead, they were handpicked from the “iPhone Essentials” list available via iTunes and the App Store.

“In the letter, the two Congressmen ask questions like ‘how many times was your iOS app downloaded,’ ‘did you have a privacy policy in place at the end of February 2012,’ ‘has your iOS app transmitted […] any other information from or about a user's device,’ and a request for descriptions of what has been done to any data that has been transmitted or stored,” the report reveals. “The developers are given a deadline of April 12, 2012 to respond -- exactly three weeks from today.”

Of course, Path isn’t the only app which uploads contact information to it servers -- it’s just the one who got caught, largely because it was doing so without explicit permission from its users, something which the developer has already addressed in a recent update.

Many developers are pointing the finger at Apple, claiming that the company “needs to overhaul iOS user information security before there’s any kind of consistency in app behavior.” That change didn’t arrive with iOS 5.1 earlier this month, but we’re guessing some changes will be introduced at WWDC in June, where iOS 6 is likely to get at least a sneak preview.